ornithopod phylogeny is a fuckin mess, jesus christ
Pass it on!
(And read more about prehistoric feathered dinosaurs here.)
Just a friendly reminder.
Bonus fun fact: Used correctly, “pterodactyl” only applies to the genus Pterodactylus or, more broadly, to pterosaurs of the suborder Pterodactyloidea.
It’s kinda tricky to figure out. You can google the japanese name (mouseover the text), go to its wikipedia article, and find its english name there.
I got Huayangosaurus, a stegosaur.
Everyone do it!
i love prehistoric-birds!!!
False. No telescope could possibly have that kind of resolution.
(Source: ikenbot)
TRICERATOPS NEVER EXSISTED??
I’M GOING TO CRY
CALM DOWN EVERYONE. TRICERATOPS STILL EXISTS.
Brotosaurus doesn’t, and hasn’t for over a century, but Triceratops does. That whole thing with Triceratops was started by some idiot paleontologist who had no idea what they were talking about, and the media ran away with it.
Explanation: Sometimes, two different fossils will be discovered, and they both get named, but then they are later realized to have been the same species (or genus) of animal all along. In that case, the more recent name gets trashed, and the first name stays. Recently, paleontologists thought that Torosaurus might actually have been an adult Triceratops. This was found not to be the case, but even if it had, the name Torosaurus would have gone away and Triceratops would have stayed, since the name Triceratops has been around longer.
6. Turdus - “Thrush”
Turdus is a modern genus of thrushes, which includes the American Robin. One theory is that these birds migrated to Earth from Uranus.
5. Erectopus - “Upright Foot”
No, it’s not a particularly horny type of cephalopod. Erectopus was a theropod dinosaur, and a close relative of Megalosaurus. Apparently, genetalia-related names run in the family: the first dinosaur bone ever scientifically described was a femur fragment of Megalosaurus, which one geologist thought looked like a pair of testicles. He named it Scrotum humanum, and if not for a small loophole in the rules of taxonomic nomenclature, poor Megalosaurus would have been stuck with that name for good.
4. Irritator - “Irritator”
Irritator was a smaller relative of the infamous Spinosaurus. When paleontologists first got their hands on the then-unidentified dinosaur skull, they found that it had been altered by fossil dealers in order to make it look more complete. This irritated them so much that they named it Irritator.
3. Pantydraco - “Dragon of Pant-y-ffynnon”
Pantydraco was an early relative of the giant sauropod dinosaurs like Apatosaurus. Its name was supposed to refer to the Welsh fossil bed where it was first discovered, but it ended up sounding more like a Harry Potter slashfic.
2. Pederpes - “Peter’s Foot”
What do you get when you cross a pedophile and herpes? Pederpes, of course! This unfortunately-named tetrapod was among the first vertebrates to leave the water and walk on land.
1. Amorphophallus - “Malformed Penis”
The previous entries on this list only sounded like dirty or funny words, but this one literally means FUCKED-UP DICK. Also known as the “corpse flower”, one species of Amorphophallus is that flower you’ve heard of before that only blooms once a year, and when it does, it smells like a rotting corpse. It’s also one of the largest flowers in the world, making it a GIANT, SMELLY, FUCKED-UP DICK.
(reblogging because apparently the tags didn’t work -.-)
(Source: kororaa)
(Source: aimee-likes-cats)
Dimetrodon and Eoraptors by Juan de Santiago
Dimetrodon was not contemporaneous with any dinosaurs.
